Is an Academy a Way to Change a Culture? Why change the culture within education? The powers that be have long argued it’s part of a broader effort to reform underperforming urban areas. Some call education broken. Others suggest the funding allocated to it, needs re-routing; perhaps to more politically expedient ventures. Or perhaps it reflects poor political policies that is leading towards underperforming urban areas due to financial constraints?
But if the goal is genuine cultural change, then it must go beyond systems and staff attitudes. It requires a shift in mindset and environment. And yes, it often carries the fingerprints of a politician’s ego project; sometimes well-intentioned, other times not. Like the NHS, Education is an ongoing government expenditure, that can be used as a buffer to compensate over expenditure from other areas and is treated as a temporary measure. This may be excused, once or possibly twice within a brief duration, one cannot overlook and question this as being a dubious poor financial management practice or just bad judgement, as this sets a precedence to others that may follow.
Creating an academy is framed as a fresh start. A reset of historical doctrine. A symbolic demolition of the old to make way for the new. But this reset often comes at a cost: staff redundancies, loss of institutional memory and disruption in an already strained employment landscape. It’s a racetrack metaphor; everyone lined up at the start, stripped of inherited mindsets or privileges, ready to begin again. But another question arises, who decides the rules of the race?
I’m reminded of British Leyland in the 1970s: name changes, buyouts, streamlining, redundancies. Yet the old culture re-
emerged, phoenix-like, from the flames. The lesson? You can rebrand a system, but unless you address its deeper rhythms and rituals, the past returns. Sometimes, the only way to eradicate a negative doctrine is to close and demolish the factory. The same could be said of governments or political parties. And perhaps, in 2025, that reckoning has arrived—the collapse of the Labour and Conservative political parties, and with the rise of a new Reform party movement.
We must also note, in the 60's and 70s' to today 2000s we have been told to embrace technology and efficiency, but for whom? We know technology and change, costs jobs and people will be poorer and will need to rely on the government of the day to help the people or at least compensate for the financial sacrifices they are making for the sake of government policy decisions, however; political memories are short and attitudes are arrogant and over time there will be a point of unrest.
Education in the UK is shaped by entrenched structures: government, curriculum, staffing, industry, and more.
Each stakeholder carries their own agenda, often undermining shared goals. Real change demands communication, infrastructure, and; most elusive of all, common sense. It must be free from political badging; especially from those feeling entitled and equality rhetoric that obscures merit. It must be rooted in clarity, not blind performance.
The writing is on the wall, not just in slogans or mission statements, but in the quiet resignation of teachers, the disillusionment of students, the indigenous population as a whole and the bureaucratic echo chambers that mistake reforming for renewal.
